Atovaquone News

MONDAY, June 6, 2016 – Babesiosis is a sometimes serious illness transmitted to humans by ticks. Now, researchers say a two-drug combo seems to have cured the illness in mice. Babesiosis – transmitted by the same ticks that transmit the bacteria behind Lyme disease – is caused by the B. microti parasite, which can develop resistance to current treatments. "This is the first radical cure against this parasite," said lead researcher Choukri Ben Mamoun. He's an associate professor of infectious diseases at Yale University, in New Haven, Conn. People infected with the babesiosis parasite sometimes have no symptoms. However, in other cases they can develop symptoms that range from mild and flu-like, to severe and life-threatening. Babesiosis is becoming more common in the United States, the researchers noted, and is more widespread in the Northeast and northern Midwest. The Yale team said ... Read more

-- By taking an antibiotic as prescribed, you can get well faster and help prevent germs from becoming resistant to your medication. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers these antibiotic guidelines: Never skip a dose of antibiotic. Always take it on schedule, as directed. Never stop taking an antibiotic early. Always take the entire prescription, unless your doctor tells you otherwise. Never save any antibiotic medication for a future illness. Never take an antibiotic that was prescribed for another person. Read more

MONDAY, Nov. 16, 2015 – Overuse of antibiotics in farm animals poses a real health risk to children, the American Academy of Pediatrics warns in a new report. This common practice is already contributing to bacterial resistance to medicines and affecting doctors' ability to treat life-threatening infections in kids, according to the paper published online Nov. 16 in the journal Pediatrics. One expert in the field supported the academy's stance. "The connection between production uses of antibiotics in the agricultural sector to antibiotic resistance is alarming," said Victoria Richards, an associate professor of medical sciences at the Quinnipiac University School of Medicine in Hamden, Conn. She believes the danger is "not only for infants and children but other vulnerable populations, such as the pregnant and the older individuals." As the academy explained in its warning, ... Read more

MONDAY, Oct. 5, 2015 – A relatively new antibiotic-resistant bacteria called CRE is making inroads in some major American cities, U.S. health officials report. Surveillance of seven U.S. metropolitan areas found higher-than-expected levels of CRE in Atlanta, Baltimore and New York City, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lower-than-expected levels were found in Albuquerque, Denver and Portland, Ore., while the Minneapolis rate was what the agency anticipated. But CDC researchers were dismayed that they found active cases of CRE infection in every city they examined, said senior author Dr. Alexander Kallen, a CDC medical officer. The results support the CDC's decision to promote coordinated regional efforts to prevent the spread of CRE and other antibiotic-resistant germs, Kallen said. "Here we are with an opportunity to intervene on one of these ... Read more

FRIDAY, Sept. 18, 2015 – As concerns over antibiotic resistance grow around the world, researchers report they've discovered a promising new group of antibiotics. These new drugs contain iridium, a transition metal that doesn't break down easily. This may help the antibiotics treat superbugs, such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), the researchers said. "We are still at the beginning of developing and testing these antibiotics but, so far, our preliminary results show a new group of antibiotics that are effective and safe," said Joseph Falkinham, a professor of microbiology in the College of Science at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and an affiliate of the Virginia Tech Center for Drug Discovery, in a university news release. "Within the next few years, we hope to identify various characteristics of these antibiotics, such as their stability, their distribution and ... Read more

TUESDAY, Aug. 4, 2015 – An immediate, focused effort to halt the spread of antibiotic-resistant germs could save tens of thousands of lives and prevent hundreds of thousands of new infections over the next five years, a new government report suggests. As many as 37,000 lives could be saved, and 619,000 new infections prevented, if community health departments and health care facilities form tight support networks to quickly identify and address emerging outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, said report author Dr. John Jernigan. He directs the Office of HAI (Health care-Associated Infections) Prevention Research and Evaluation at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "When health care facilities and health departments in a community work together to share information about resistance, and then use that information to guide and target prevention efforts, then we ... Read more

TUESDAY, July 21, 2015 – The antibiotic dicloxacillin may lessen the effects of some blood-thinning medications, new research shows. "The surprise in the study was just how much of an impact dicloxacillin had," said study author Anton Pottegard, a pharmacist and research fellow at the University of Southern Denmark, in Odense. "Often, the effects in these kinds of studies are quite small. But this was very pronounced: Six out of 10 patients dropped so much in their level of blood-thinning that they were no longer sufficiently protected against clotting and stroke," Pottegard said. Coumadin (warfarin) and similar blood thinners lower the risk of blood clots, a potential cause of strokes and heart attacks, by thinning the blood so blockages don't form in vessels, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Patients with irregular heart rhythms, such as atrial fibrillation, and ... Read more

MONDAY, July 20, 2015 – Here's yet another reason not to overuse antibiotics: Children treated with the antibacterial drugs may face a greater risk for developing juvenile arthritis, new research suggests. The study found that children and teens prescribed antibiotics had about twice the risk of developing juvenile arthritis compared to children the same age who were not prescribed the drugs. "This risk was greatest within a year of receiving antibiotics and increased with the number of antibiotic courses children were prescribed," said study lead author Dr. Daniel Horton, a research fellow with the Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences Child Health Institute of New Jersey. Antifungal and antiviral drugs did not show the same effect, he said. The results suggest antibiotics may trigger juvenile arthritis in a small subset of children who are prone to developing this disease, Horton ... Read more

MONDAY, July 20, 2015 – Many American parents still have misconceptions about when their children should receive antibiotics and what the medications do, a new study finds. Looking at data results spanning more than a decade, researchers saw that parents with Medicaid insurance were more likely to misunderstand appropriate antibiotic use than parents with private commercial insurance. Medicaid is the government-run insurance program for lower-income Americans. "While not confirmed, it is possible that the combination of health literacy and underlying socioeconomic factors could contribute to both the misconceptions and expectations for antibiotics," said Dr. Louise Vaz. She is assistant professor of pediatric infectious diseases and medical director of the Outpatient Antibiotic Therapy Program at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. "We do need to better tailor our ... Read more

TUESDAY, June 16, 2015 – Although surgical removal of the appendix has long been a standard treatment, a new study found that almost three-quarters of people treated with antibiotics could be spared the invasive procedure known as appendectomy. "For more than a century, appendectomy has been the standard treatment," said the study's lead author Dr. Paulina Salminen, of Turku University Hospital in Finland. But about 80 percent of patients with an inflamed appendix, commonly called appendicitis, don't need to have their appendix surgically removed, and those who ultimately do need the surgery aren't hurt by waiting, according to Salminen. She thinks that this and other studies will change how appendicitis is treated. "Now we know that only a small proportion of appendicitis patients need an emergency operation," Salminen said. However, there are two types of appendicitis – one that ... Read more

THURSDAY, June 11, 2015 – The length of antibiotic treatment for abdominal infections can be cut in half and still be equally effective, a new study suggests. Doing so could help efforts to battle the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, the study authors said. The study – led by researchers at the University of Virginia – included more than 500 patients in the United States and Canada with abdominal infections. First, the source of the infection was treated, such as the removal of an inflamed appendix. After surgery, half of the patients took antibiotics for eight days. The other half took antibiotics for only four days. Outcomes in both groups were similar, the study found. "It's important for physicians to realize the most important aspect of the management of these patients is controlling the source of infection," Dr. Robert Sawyer, from the departments of surgery and ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, May 20, 2015 – Misdiagnosis often leads to improper antibiotic use in hospitals, new research finds. Incorrect antibiotic use can cause patient harm, reduce the effectiveness of antibiotics and increase health care costs, the researchers noted. "Antibiotic therapies are used for approximately 56 percent of inpatients in U.S. hospitals, but are found to be inappropriate in nearly half of these cases, and many of these failures are connected with inaccurate diagnoses," study author Dr. Greg Filice said in a news release from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. Filice, an internist with the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System, and his colleagues analyzed 500 inpatient cases at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. They found that inappropriate use of antibiotics occurred with 95 percent of patients who received an incorrect or indeterminate diagnosis, ... Read more

THURSDAY, April 30, 2015 – The antibiotic most commonly prescribed for bladder and other urinary tract infections, nitrofurantoin, may not be the most effective option, new research suggests. More than 25 percent of older adults have reduced kidney function, and bladder infections are a common complaint. Doctors often turn to nitrofurantoin to treat these and other urinary tract infections (UTIs), but concerns have been raised about the ability of the drug to reach the urinary tract and target bacteria that causes bladder infections, especially in those with poor kidney function. The new Canadian research was led by Dr. Amit Garg, a nephrologist at Western University in London, Ontario. His team compared the benefits of nitrofurantoin to the effectiveness of other commonly used antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin ("Cipro") and norfloxicin. The study, published recently in the Canadian ... Read more

WEDNESDAY, April 29, 2015 – Too few hospitals in the United States are doing everything they can to protect patients from a potentially deadly intestinal infection, a new study finds. Researchers from the University of Michigan surveyed almost 400 hospitals nationwide to determine what measures they had taken to prevent Clostridium difficile infections, which kill nearly 30,000 Americans a year and cause illness in hundreds of thousands more. Hospital patients are at high risk for C. difficile infections and for suffering serious effects, especially if they have taken antibiotics, which disrupt the normal community of bacteria in their digestive systems. Symptoms include diarrhea, fever, nausea and loss of appetite. "C. difficile infection over the last decade has emerged as a threat to patients, especially the most vulnerable and the elderly, and has increased in incidence and ... Read more

THURSDAY, April 23, 2015 – Shortages of antibiotics, including those used to treat drug-resistant infections, may be putting patients at risk for sickness and death, according to a new report. Between 2001 and 2013, there were shortages of 148 antibiotics. And the shortages started getting worse in 2007, researchers found. "Many of the drug shortages were among the only drugs to treat a particular condition, drugs to treat antibiotic-resistant bacteria and drugs used to treat children," said lead researcher Dr. Larissa May, an associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "When these drugs are not available, patients may not get the best care, or even die," she said. "If something isn't done, there may be big impacts on health care." In the study, nearly half the shortages were for antibiotics needed to treat severe infections, including ... Read more